What it’s like to be a parent with phobias

*Apologies in advance for the profanity, but I am extremely passionate about this issue.*

My gorgeous 6 month old baby. Cooing away in her bouncer I can’t help but pick her up for a cuddle! As I lift her out, I spot something. I turn her around to get a better look… it’s a fucking spider!
Phobia kicks in first – I throw her. (At least I threw her onto the sofa)
Then the maternal kicks in – I better do something. I can’t leave her on the sofa with spider stuck to her back! What if it crawls in her ear or in her mouth!

Fuck no. Why. Please God. I can’t. But I have to. Come on. Be brave. It’s just a spider. But I HATE spiders. It’s going to touch me. No! Stop it! You’ve got to save your baby. Maybe if I leave her there the spider will suffocate. But what if it doesn’t? OH MY GOD. Help.

This is the type of narrative that runs through my mind every time I see a spider. Or a piece of fluff, a spec on the floor or anything that moves for that matter.
Eventually though, after about 6 minutes of praying and my daughter looking at me like WTF mum?! I rolled her over using 2 fingers. Heart palpitations, sweat, dry mouth. There’s the bastard! It looks pretty squashed though… actually it looks a lot like a piece of brown cotton. ooohhh the SHAME.

You see I get myself in such a bloody state over nothing sometimes. And I can’t even tell you what it is about spiders that I don’t like. I just hate them. There’s one in my cupboard at the moment. I saw it and its huge. That’s ok. I can live without that cupboard it’s only got all my old shit in it anyway.

I check all corners of a room before I can relax. In our block of flats spider hang down from the lights. I’ve been trapped on the stairs before. One spider at each exit. I literally thought I was going to die.

Yesterday I made my three year old walk under a spider first just make sure there wasn’t a web which could stick to me and pull the spider down. I felt a little bit guilty and a huge bit pathetic. But have you seen my hair? If a spider gets in there I am NOT going to be able to find it. That is my worst nightmare.

I have been known to jump out of my moving car because of a spider. The front of my car is still damaged  from rolling into a lamp post. I’m just glad that it was a lamp post and not a person. The kids were not with me on that occasion and I wondered what I would have done  if they had’ve been. I found that out last week when a spider descended from the roof of my car above my head towards my lap. I was driving on a main road and there was no place to stop and escape. I had my baby in the car. I tried to blow the spider towards the wind screen  but it just kept on coming. Bloody thing! I mean why would you descend??? Like you can’t see big old me sitting underneath you! I just had to tell my self “You won’t die… YOU WONT DIE”. I was really proud of myself for not crashing or fainting and I have my boy to thank for that.

I am also extremely irrational around moths. We have had some big fuckers in and around our home. One had me laying flat on the floor until it eventually flew into the light, got stuck and burned to death. And it Stayed in there for about a year until the bulb blew then I made my partner get it out with tongs. (He wasn’t going to touch it either, it was like a bird!)
One evening there was a fat one on the wall next to my front door. It was dark and I couldn’t just stand outside all night (I would have if I wasn’t with my baby)

You know when you just know that the second you walk past it it’s going to start flying around like a twat. But I tried to move slowly… don’t disturb it. I managed to get my key in door and then BOOM it flies towards me. I tried to hit it but punched myself in the face. Ran inside and shut the door before it could follow me in. Just one problem with that love… your baby is still outside the front door. And so is the MOTH.

My final phobia is death. And this one is pain in the arse because IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN. I can’t squash it, hoover it up or dodge it. I’ve always had this phobia and I think it is worse now because I have children. If I think about it for more than 30 seconds, I will have an anxiety attack. There are some plus points to this one though, I makes me be a little nicer to people. I will read one more story, give more hugs and kisses and try my best to make every day a good one.

I’ll leave that one there before I start panicking.

Do you have any phobias? Did having children change them at all? I’d love to know!